A picture is circulating various gadget websites that it is claimed is Microsoft's own-brand iPod clone. It's said to be codenamed 'Argo' and to have the go-to-market name 'Zune', but there's little else that can said about it.

DVD technology is by no means new, but that doesn’t mean that we know everything about the way that these devices store our movies and data. New research conducted by scientists at North Carolina State University has provided new insight into how this mature technology works. Their findings may lead to advances in data storage as well as within the computer industry as a whole.

Promoters of the HD DVD format are stepping up the battle against Blu-ray: A newly formed "North American HD DVD Promotional Group" announced that it will be launching a hefty marketing and advertising campaign to convince US consumers that HD DVD is "The Look and Sound of Perfect."

Lite-On IT is planning production of DVD burners supporting the SATA (serial advanced technology attachment) interface standard, according to industry sources.

A federal judge in Colorado has handed the entertainment industry a big win in its protracted legal battle against a handful of small companies that offer sanitized versions of theatrical releases on DVD.

Slingbox have unveiled a home theatre networking solution that allows you to view a media stream anywhere you have internet access.

Sony's PlayStation 3 will play almost every PlayStation game, a senior IBM staffer has claimed. It's not clear how many PSOne titles won't play, but according to Tom Reeves, VP of semiconductor and technology services at IBM, even 40 of them was too high a number for Sony.

Paramount Home Video is venturing forth into the HD DVD market with the release of 10 titles on the high definition disc format.

The launch of Blu-ray Disc burners may be further delayed due to tight laser diode supply.

Trying to bridge the gap between next-generation optical disk formats, Ricoh said it has developed an optical component that reads and writes all disk formats—Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD, as well as DVD and CD—with one pickup and one objective lens.

Lite-On IT plans to work with Toshiba to launch HD-DVD players at prices less than US$1,000 in the beginning of August while aiming to ship 50,000 Blu-ray players per month before year-end, according to the Chinese-language Apple Daily.

Microsoft has warned public beta testers to burn downloaded Vista ISOs to disc at speeds as slow as 1X or 2X in order to get a reliable burn.

A new generation of iPods use sophisticated software to convert the names of bands, albums and individual tracks into recognisable speech to tell you what it is about to play, removing the need for users to look at the screen while selecting music, and making the device safer and easier to use while driving, cycling or in badly-lit locations.

Matsushita, the maker of the Panasonic brand of electronics is planning to launch the world's largest plasma television by the end of the year.
Measuring 2.4 meters by 1.4 meters (94 by 55 in) and weighing 215 kg (473 lb.), the 103-inch (measured diagonally) panel is bigger than a double-sized mattress and almost as heavy as an upright piano.

The recorded music industry's trade group has invited internet service providers (ISPs) to "enforce their own terms of use" and freeze the accounts of customers who illegally fileshare.

UK satellite broadcaster Sky have gone live with a free service called 'Sky+ Remote Record' that allows you to schedule your Sky+ satellite set-top-box to record programmes using your mobile phone.

Fancy turning your copy of Skype into a watch-anywhere TV viewer? Now you can, courtesy of Japanese company Novac, which today announced a box that turns any suitably-specified PC into a machine for beaming TV shows to anyone on the internet.

Don't use your iPod or mobile phone in a lightning storm. There have been various reports of teenagers suffering some extreme traumas due to the unwise use of such devices at the wrong times.

Remember where you were when you heard that Google was giving away a gigabyte of storage with its GMail service? Well, Google is doing it again, taking on the likes of YouTube via a breakthrough offering that is destined to strap a rocket to the so-far earthbound Google Video service.

DVDs coated with a layer of protein could one day hold so much information that storing data on your computer hard drive will be obsolete, says a US-based researcher.